Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I grumble, not liking this scenario.
“And don’t say it’s because you’re the God of Death,” he quickly adds. “I’m tired of hearing it.”
“I’m tired of a lot of things. What if you’re the only who can kill her?”
Torben goes silent, seeming to consider it. “I suppose that makes sense. Hopefully, it won’t be put to the test.”
Fuck. What if my father-in-law is the key to all of this? Wouldn’t that be something. Of course, I don’t tell him that. I wouldn’t want it to go to his head.
“But even if you were to take out Louhi and Salainen,” he goes on, “the hive will descend into chaos. The underlings will fight back. No Inmost Dweller wants to go back to Inmost. They’ll want to stay free, and they’ll fight you with everything they’ve got, even if the queens are gone. How are you going to deal with them? You’re outnumbered.”
I shake my head, noticing that snow is starting to fall in the forest. I’ll be frozen solid by the time we get to his cabin. “I’ll figure it out,” I tell him, hating that I don’t have an answer yet.
“I think you already have,” he says. “We talked about you building an army here. The only issue was there wasn’t any time. Now, we have time. Whether we need an excavator to clear out the portal tunnel to Death’s Landing, or I need time to create or locate another portal, you have time now to do some recruiting.”
I stare at the back of his head as we walk. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it. Sure, I could probably find some people and command them to fight for me, and I could probably grant them some sort of reward in return. Perhaps not immortality, but I could get them a spot in Amaranthus if it still exists.
But where would I find these people who know how to fight? How would I gather all of them without attracting any attention?
“You know, Finland has mandatory army training,” Torben says. “Our army during wartime is nearly two hundred thousand soldiers strong. Even with current conscripts, you’re looking at twenty thousand people, easily.”
“Are you suggesting I go to the nearest army base, magic my way in, and command all the soldiers to fight for me in the Underworld?”
Torben looks at me over his shoulder and nods, a glint in his eye. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“That almost seems too easy,” I say, weighing the options carefully.
“Oh, I’m sure it won’t be easy at all,” he says. “And there are major moral and ethical implications of brainwashing the free mind and using them to fight for a cause that doesn’t directly affect them. But as you’ve said about having to make tough decisions…this might be one of those decisions. This might be the only way you’ll be able to defeat Louhi, Salainen, the Old Gods, and the Bone Stragglers.”
I find myself nodding, though I’m having a hard time coming to terms with it.
With the truth.
The battle for the afterlife will happen in the Land of the Dead.
But it’s the mortals who might end up saving the world.
THE END…for NOW
Because the fourth and final book, Goddess of Light, is slated to release November 2024 (date may change) and you can preorder it now at your own peril.
The novella God of Death is still coming in 2024.
I’ll have some teasers and excerpts from these for my REAM subscribers. Also feel free to follow me on IG, Tik Tok, Threads, my newsletter, etc. if you want to stay updated (I’ve also been posting lots of Underworld Gods art…and I’m due to post a NSFW art piece of Hanna and Death for my newsletter soon!)
AND I’ve included a short story about Tuonen if you’d like to turn the page…
Tuonen: Son of Death
An Underworld Gods Short Story - Previously published as part of the Bookish Box’s Winter Anthology
There’s a bell that rings when someone has died. It’s located on the pebbled shores of Death’s Landing, a place where the newly dead end up, confused and shrouded by fog. Despite the confusion, most people know on some innate level that they are dead and that they are to ring the bell to continue their journey to the afterlife, even if they have no idea what exactly this afterlife entails.
But some people, like Aven Morris, are so completely against the idea of death, particularly their death, that the bell doesn’t even appear to them. Every single cell in their body tells them that they are alive, that there’s been some mistake. They can’t even remember the last moments of life on the other side, anything that led to their death. To them, one minute, they were living as usual, and the next, they’re standing on a misty shore, black water gently lapping the rocks, wondering how the hell they ended up there.